


Memorial Day

by syredronning



Series: bridge2sickbay [45]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22072288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syredronning/pseuds/syredronning
Summary: Memorial Day is standing straight during the ceremony, his captain's uniform clean and bright, his chin high and his eyes fixed on the Starfleet flag.
Relationships: Number One/Christopher Pike
Series: bridge2sickbay [45]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542673
Kudos: 11





	Memorial Day

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge drabble written for bridge2sickbay in 2009, rescued from Livejournal. All errors are mine.

Memorial Day is standing straight during the ceremony, his captain's uniform clean and bright, his chin high and his eyes fixed on the Starfleet flag.

Memorial Day is having Jim in his arms, too much of a son, too much of a lover, edging along the could-be and what-not and then parting after a hug that takes too long, walking away into another direction.

Memorial Day is having a drink or two or three with his colleagues in the mess hall, watching some of the officers fall apart and cry into their glasses over all the things they couldn't change and all the errors that cost someone's life.

Memorial Day is trying to make a call to Winona Kirk, speaking words onto the recording machine of a person he knows so much and yet so little about, a few commiserating words about her loss before telling her how proud she should be of Jim. Not that he thinks she really is.

Memorial Day is the memory of blood on his hand, for real or because of his orders, the visions of orphans and crying parents creeping up in the night when he's in bed at last, drunk and alone and wondering if it's going to stay like this forever, the ghosts of thirty years knocking on his door.

The year after the Narada, everything is multiplied, the ghosts and the crying. He doesn't stand anymore, and he doesn't have to call Winona because she shows up in person, shaking his hand and telling him that she's always listened. Kirk and McCoy knock on his doors and they drink together, inviting the ghosts to share. It's Number One who clears them out, sending them home to wherever they live, and takes him to bed, holding him close.

"Don't need your sympathy," he mutters. _As if._

"Go to sleep," she says and wraps her arm around him, turning his hardest Memorial Day ever into a bittersweet fest.


End file.
